A Look at Media Navigator, Sony’s stab at Digital Asset Management

The platform, aimed at media professionals working with massive and different formats, is claimed to be user friendly and can handle many modern media formats including 4K and is ideal for large institutions like studios, production houses, broadcast companies or even for a solo professional working on multiple projects.

Most asset management systems only support a restricted amount of formats and can handle certain file types only. The Media Navigator, however, promises to offer seamless interoperability and collaborates with different formats across the line. Also, it supposedly does not have a steep learning curve, nor does it need a prerequisite knowledge of jargon for operating the platform.

One can also create custom workflows, to cater to specific needs. Media Navigator tackles ingesting, cataloging and editing to review, approvals, distribution and archival, all under one platform.. The interface is intuitive and customizable, allowing users to create their own working environment for faster and more efficient workflows.

Trim assets and add them to a storyboard. This can be either be saved as a new asset altogether, or the storyboard exported as an EDL to a non-linear editing (NLE) system.

The EDL is first passed to MBC (Media Backbone Connector, the core of the Navigator), which converts it into the NLE’s correct project/sequence format and delivers the right media in the right format to the NLE’s storage environment.